Speed Road Tour Challenge is a reality television game show (or "game opera") that airs on the United States cable/satellite network Speed Channel. The host is Rutledge Wood.
Four contestants travel together on a tour bus, similar to those used on musical concert tours, as they travel between various race tracks that host NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series races. There are 13 episodes, each corresponding to the races on the NASCAR on Fox schedule (Fox and Speed Channel have the same parent company, News Corporation). The series debuted on February 15, 2007 and the finale was held on May 24.
Each show has a reward challenge in which points are awarded to the contestants based on their performance. The winner of each challenge gets a reward related to NASCAR racing, the losers are punished (e.g. cleaning bathrooms or disposing of garbage at the track). The contestant with the most points at the end of the 13 weeks wins a job with Speed Channel.
During the competition, there were two cast changes. The first came when Eric Frega, a contestant from Riverside, California, withdrew from the competition after the casting episode before the season began for reasons that were not disclosed. Then, after the Kobalt Tools 500, Becky Patterson left the Challenge because she did not feel comfortable competing on the show.
On the season finale, John was announced as the winner of the Challenge. Wood implied that his job with the network would be as an intern traveling with its production staff to the remaining races of the 2007 NASCAR NEXTEL Cup season. Scott English of Charlotte, North Carolina, finished second, followed by Carrie and Estee. Carrie joined the show after Becky dropped out, and John replaced Eric just before the start of competition.Actually John led the points after the half-way point in the show and never looked back winning a brand new Toyota Tundra and the SPEED job.
Famous quotes containing the words speed, road, tour and/or challenge:
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—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“What blazed ahead of you? A faked road block?
The red lamp swung, the sudden brakes and stalling
Engine, voices, heads hooded and the cold-nosed gun?”
—Seamus Heaney (b. 1939)
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—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“She might have been old once and now, miraculously, young again—but with the memory of that other life intact. She seemed to know the world down there in the dark hall and beyond for what it was. Yet knowing, she still longed to leave this safe, sunlit place at the top of the house for the challenge there.”
—Paule Marshall (b. 1929)